


Dispel the Gloom, and Spread Immortal Day

by akathecentimetre



Series: A Gentleman's Agreement [4]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-04 01:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12158880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: Abdul had thought rather a lot in the hours since Thomas found him at what was left of his house about initiative, and bravery, and how to demonstrate love and trust in the most obvious and unmistakable of ways. And this, he thought – he hoped – this turning into Thomas while still half-asleep, with his body stirring into his warmth and making itself very clear that it was up for continuing from where they had left off before Abdul had had to sleep off the effects of being put through a fair bit of masonry – this, he hoped, was a good enough first step in proving all he felt.





	Dispel the Gloom, and Spread Immortal Day

**Author's Note:**

> A differently-detailed, slightly more melancholic take on the six months when Abdul lives in the Folly. (Plus some tiny bits of almost-sex, finally!)

*

Abdul Walid had woken up in the Folly dozens of times, but this time it was rather – and wonderfully – different.

He’d lifted his head slowly up from a book or table in the library most often, moving carefully and gritting his teeth against the incipient pain in his tweaked neck. Less frequently, but with no less rueful confusion and no fewer cramped muscles, he had woken in a chair by the fire in the sitting room with a cup of tea already sitting steaming by his side in the dawn light; the tea, he was sure, had been made and brought to him by Molly, but over the years he began to question whether it had been her or Nightingale who always managed to tuck a wool blanket that smelled like it had come back from war around him without waking him up. He’d yawned in the kitchen, and been ushered gently out the door by Thomas near midnight with the stern advice to not come back until he had been thoroughly rested, walking back through the busy Soho night wishing he had stayed to be coddled by Molly’s propensity to whip up a dessert at the drop of pin; he’d been at the Folly early, late, and at every hour in between around his hospital shifts, and considered certain chairs and times of day to be his without even having to ask.

None of that compared – could ever compare – with waking up next to Thomas in his first-floor bedroom, on a grey September morning in 1990.

Thomas was sitting up against the headboard beside him as Abdul swam his way back to consciousness, half-in a dressing gown which somehow managed to be old-fashioned and perfect for him (a contradiction Abdul had grown fondly used to), and was scratching away at a folded _Telegraph_ crossword. He put it and his pencil down immediately when he noticed Abdul stirring, and put a warm hand on Abdul’s shoulder – and if Abdul had had any self-conscious doubts of his love before, he certainly didn’t then, so open and relaxed was his face.

“Good morning,” Thomas said, as British and unruffled as ever. “How are you feeling?”

Abdul considered, and then cautiously stretched; his bruises had gone deep, and made themselves felt, and he couldn’t help but wince. “Sore.”

“Really?” Thomas said, with a smile, and Abdul could have fallen out of the bed, damn his injuries, at the mere thought of Thomas Nightingale making even the slightest attempt at sexual innuendo. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“I’m sure you are,” Walid yawned, meaning it in several different ways, and turned onto his side; two could play at being casual, and the slight intake of breath from Thomas as Abdul put his head on Thomas’s hip and slid a hand around his thigh was most enjoyable.

He had anticipated – not reluctance, per se, but a noticeable amount of uncertainty around him from Thomas, and had been proved correct in his hypothesis. In his mind, and in many ways, it made complete and utter sense that a man who had lacked for any sort of romantic partner for decades at a time would be somewhat at a loss as to how to interact with one. (Abdul had asked for the details of his sexual history when he was first compiling a complete medical history on Nightingale in 1980, and been politely, but completely, stonewalled; he had taken to not asking.) And perhaps far more important in Thomas’s mind, he suspected, was that he might have been a bit nonplussed by the idea of inviting a man almost sixty years his junior – and a junior to him intellectually, professionally, and in experience, come to think of it – to share anything of his life, let alone be his lover.

Abdul had, therefore, thought rather a lot in the hours since Thomas found him at what was left of his house about initiative, and bravery, and how to demonstrate love and trust in the most obvious and unmistakable of ways. And this, he thought – he hoped – this turning into Thomas while still half-asleep, with his body stirring into his warmth and making itself very clear that it was up for continuing from where they had left off before Abdul had had to sleep off the effects of being put through a fair bit of masonry – this, he hoped, was a good enough first step in proving all he felt.

He turned his head a little further, pressed what he could of his face that didn’t hurt into Thomas’s abdomen, and smiled into the dressing gown as Thomas finally moved; in future he didn’t want Thomas to think of him as something to be worshiped, but he couldn’t deny the intensity of what felt like Thomas _marveling_ at him in the way his hand planed over Abdul’s back and pulled their waists slowly together, or in the dip of his head downwards to kiss him.

The rest of the first week was all rather like that, to the point where Abdul had no desire for it to end. Thomas continued to look surprised, even visibly touched, at Abdul's openness to him, and at his own ability to render Abdul utterly and happily pliant; Abdul continued to be charmed by the whole manner of things that was Thomas, and completely contented with the mere sensation of being wanted, treated as though he was precious and vital.

The week did end, of course, because the leave he had aspirationally taken thinking that he would get a holiday in which to settle into his house (somehow that seemed like such a petty goal, now) ran out, and the morning when he was due to return to work at UCH began with a rather frightening dose of reality, manifesting itself in the silent, looming form of Molly standing over them at six in the morning with a little pile of Walid’s laundered clothes in her hands. Once his heartrate had returned to normal (which took some time), Abdul found himself running late, and felt like he was rather living up to the vision of himself Thomas might have had of being young and flighty as he stuffed a paper bag of sandwiches into his pocket – Molly pouted at this abuse of her handiwork, but, having been thoroughly softened by his continued presence, didn’t openly protest – and hurried his way into his coat in the foyer, peering gloomily at the dimness of rain outside.

“When are you off?” Thomas asked; he had come downstairs half-dressed in the best aristocratic fashion, and looked rather like he would stay like that all day.

“Tutorials until seven. I’m sorry.”

“Whatever for?” Thomas said, sounding nonchalant but not losing the territorial look in his face which told Abdul otherwise. 

Abdul chose to kiss him in lieu of answering, knowing that even the best of convictions that he would come back could do with some reinforcement. And it made him feel better, too, in the way that the resumption of routine in the world outside when he could have been dead instead somehow couldn’t.

He was met at one of the side doors to UCH by Lewis, who had stepped out for a break with some lukewarm tea and a cigarette, and got his first of what he suspected would be many wide-eyed stares at the fading bruises which were still dotted about his face. “ _Uffern dam_ ,” he said. “What on earth happened to you?”

“Didn’t get an alarm system installed quick enough at the house,” Walid lied ruefully. “Burglars.”

“Bugger me,” Lewis said, looking and sounding suddenly paternal. “You alright? Need somewhere to kip?”

“No, thanks – I’ve got a place for the moment,” Abdul said, and felt absurdly pleased with the truth of it.

He was not usually a man who daydreamt, but he did that day. He sensed the pull of the Folly, so close in the scrum of the city, like it was the slow suck of a whirlpool; like the hospital itself and everything around him in it was straining towards the southeast. He found himself hovering over the telephone in his office on his break, and only made himself march away from it towards the lab where his students were waiting with difficulty; it was only the realization that he had spent an hour being totally uninterested in answering their questions that shocked him into being present in the moment he was living in, and somehow got him muddling through to the end of the lesson on resection technique.

He just about managed to stop himself from breaking into a jog during his walk back to Russell Square, and arrived at the Folly at seven-thirty to see that Molly was already holding the door half-open for him, her eyes glittering with what could have been either concern or a deep-held, slightly sadistic mirth.

“I’d like to see you try it,” he said, pointing sternly at her as he hurried past, and he could hear her hiss of laughter following him as he rounded the corner into the sitting room.

Thomas could never look disheveled – it simply wasn’t in his physical vocabulary. But Walid could tell, as he pulled himself out of his coat and left his bag haphazardly in a chair, that the way he was standing stiffly at the mantelpiece, even with his shirtsleeves perfectly folded back and his watch in a perfect semi-circle on its chain and the polish on his shoes, made him look as unnerved as Abdul had ever seen him.

“So,” Thomas said, with a half-smile, “how was your day, doctor?”

“Unbearable,” Abdul scolded, not really caring who or what he was blaming, and rapidly crossed the room, losing himself in the greedy snatch of Thomas’s hands at his clothes.

The combination of being stupidly young, a student, and Scottish had led to Abdul having his fair share of half-harrowing sexual encounters while in university. Many of them involved the effects of some form of drink, and involved an often-incomprehensible amount of anger, either misdirected from his partner of choice's own self-loathing onto him or generally directed at the entire ludicrous situation that was fucking one another next to some bins behind one or another of the clubs that would cater to being trashed by the entirety of the University of Edinburgh's student body every Friday night. He had enjoyed those moments for the thrill of them, or at least he thought he had, until the respite that was provided by his conversion and the sobriety and contemplation it required let him off that particular social hook – and reminded him that he could do better than having his back up against a brick wall in the dark or his knees in a puddle, and that indeed he should.

This, though – this new side of Thomas, the one which wasn't imbued with gentlemanly patience and titillation and a dedication to giving as much as he received – this was worth it, suddenly, as Abdul's back hit the mantelpiece and he heard a bust of some seventeenth-century philosopher wobble on its pedestal above him. Thomas was hard and insistent with him and it felt like he was owned, like the entire house was whispering _Mine_ , and it was a promise he felt that he could willingly, passionately keep.

It did become easier to leave the Folly, though it was always easier still to return. At the end of the second week, he went to his house on Albert St to check in on the damage the goblin had caused in a clearer frame of mind; a lot of the mess had been at least somewhat cleared away by persons unknown (Abdul suspected Thomas must have paid a builder to come in and put his front corridor back together again), but the carpets were still stained with blood that was only partly his own and glass dust crunched under his feet as he walked through the kitchen, and he knew he couldn’t stay. He ended up taking the Tube north after he’d locked the door behind him; he got off at Muswell Hill, spent an hour combing through the selection of records at Les Aldrich, and came back to the Folly laden down with Schubert, Lalo, and Brahms.

Thomas had been out at one of his long, usually frustrating meetings with his new-found colleagues in the police force who were convinced that they suddenly needed to get the last wizard in London ‘on side,’ and came back after dark; he looked curious as he came into the library, his hair slightly damp from the evening mist outdoors, and found Walid sitting and listening to the _Winterreise_.

“What’s all this about?” he murmured, coming over and leaning down over the back of the chair to put a hand on Abdul’s chest.

“‘A longing for the infinite,’” Abdul quoted, hoping Schlegel would forgive him, and reached around the chair to tug Thomas astride him.

Time seemed central to everything, in the world of the Folly. Abdul had no concept of how long a day felt in passing to a nonagenarian but he would guess, based on his own sense that every joyous moment he had passed too quickly between those when he had to be at work, that to Thomas they were nothing more than blinks of an eye, and the hours of inactivity between them were unfairly long compared to the years when there had been little to fill them. Age felt paramount; the future uncertain, and the past dangerous. In the midst of it all Abdul felt himself taking on the task of threading the needle between those extremes and keeping them firmly rooted in the present, and treated it with the utmost care.

There were moments, of course, when the world broke in on them, but even those started to turn to their advantage – like the evening when Thomas walked in with DS Alexander Seawoll, right into the middle of Abdul’s attempting to teach Molly how to waltz. She had looked suspicious when he’d first put on the Strauss record, but was doing creditably well – after only a few instances of treading on his toes – but she stopped stock-still, and blanched, and quickly fled, slapping Abdul’s hands away from hers, when Thomas slipped into the library with the huge, beady-eyed Yorkshireman behind him.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Thomas said, nodding to Abdul in a way which gently promised apology later. “Our newfound friends thought it fit that they should inspect the property – since it’s technically under their jurisdiction, now.”

DS Seawoll was slightly younger than Abdul, with a thick bull neck and even more of a northern chip on his shoulder than Abdul could ever remember having as an expatriate Scotsman, but his gaze was penetrating and sharp; his eyes narrowed slightly at the both of them, reading their body language in a way that Abdul couldn’t help but be impressed by, and he nodded respectfully enough while being introduced to Abdul and his qualifications.

“I’m being promoted soon, and assigned to be your official liaison,” he said to Thomas as they continued through the house with Abdul trailing at their heels, managing – just – to not sound up himself. “I have to say – if I am t’be permitted – I’m quite skeptical of all this, Chief Inspector.”

“No offense taken, Sergeant,” Thomas said, shaking his head and quite pointedly ignoring the delighted look Abdul gave him at the sound of his title. “We shall just have to proceed as we may, I think.”

Thomas rounded on Abdul, glaring, the moment he had seen Seawoll out. “Don’t you start.”

“Chief Inspector,” Abdul said slowly, grinning. “How very nice,” he added, and followed a violently-blushing Thomas (because of course he was pleased, how could he not be?) to the kitchen blithely going on for as long as he could about how it would be _quite_ all right if Thomas wanted to call him ‘Doctor’ in bed in return, until he got shut up. Very successfully. With tongue.

He started going back to Albert St in January, telling himself that he could at least put some of his recently-unused salary back to work and start refurnishing; and in the post-holidays frenzy that was rebuilding, getting over the small sense of loss he always felt after spending Christmas in Oban, in a place and with people he could still always call a home, and a sudden rush of seasonal viral gastroenteritis that was filling UCH and keeping him on call night after night, there was – not a decoupling, as such, but a definite sense of distance from the Folly, starting to develop in his mind.

Much to his surprise – and his relief – it didn’t change a thing.

He could crash out on the sofa at Albert St, with a hand dangling down onto his new hardwood floors – he had had to get rid of the carpet entirely – and still stop by the Folly in the morning for coffee and find Thomas waiting for him, and Molly’s hearth overflowing. He kept a spare prayer rug in the Folly’s library; he could still go there after any shift, at any time, and cleanse the weary work of flu season off of his hands and face in Molly’s gleaming sink before switching off the lights, climbing the stairs, and crawling into bed next to Thomas, who never failed to wake slightly and settle with him, both of them then unmoving until it was properly morning.

He could still be there often enough when Thomas needed him, when he was twitched awake by the bed creaking and Thomas sitting upright and motionless, staring into nothing, the small, unceasing tremble of him barely visible in the dark.

 _Whist, now_ , he remembered mumbling, on most of those occasions, and never had to wait long for Thomas to turn into his outstretched hands and let Abdul lull them both back into sleep.

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” Thomas told him abruptly one evening, when they had been reading in a companionate silence in the sitting room after a long day of trudging out across Hampstead Heath in search of what the local police had called ‘weird lights and all.’

“Stay where?” Abdul said, only half-listening, as he turned a page of the seventeenth-century manuscript he had in his lap, which claimed that local London fae often employed conjured lights as bait for unwary children.

“Here,” Thomas said, and then Abdul did look up at him. There was nothing alarming in Thomas’s expression; just a sort of warm, quiet acceptance. “I suspect I will always be here. Whether you are is entirely up to you.”

Abdul didn’t waste any time trying to parse whether Thomas was talking about his physical presence or something more; he just stood, and put down the book, and walked over to lean down to put his palms on armrests and fence Thomas into his wingbacked chair.

“I think I understand you,” he said, and smiled. “But I have no intention of leaving your life in any way, Thomas Nightingale.”

“Good,” Thomas said, sounding more relieved than he ought to have done, and leaned upwards into Abdul’s kiss.

Abdul grinned against Thomas’s cheek, thinking of just how he could make himself as clear as possible, and grabbed at Thomas’s wrist to pull him up out of his chair. “Can Molly manage on her own here for tonight?”

“I should think so. Why?”

“Because I think Albert St needs a christening, and I’m not bloody well doing it solo.”

“Oh,” Thomas said, his eyes widening, and the smile he gave Abdul made him look far younger than he had any right to be. “I’d like that.”

Abdul looked back into the Folly from the doorway after Thomas stepped out onto the pavement, and almost felt, a little absurdly, like saying goodbye; he stopped himself, in the end, and waved at Molly from where she was smiling at him from the stairs, and slipped his set of keys into the pocket of his jacket to stay.

*

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton" by Samuel Bowden (1735). Thanks for reading!


End file.
